ENGLISH LAND CULTIVATION. 51 



ucts hold the market. It would not pay 

 to take the trouble to amalgamate some of 

 these tiny fields into really workable farms, 

 which could be broken up with big ploughs, 

 sown, fertilized, and reaped by machinery, 

 because the competition of cheap wheat 

 from abroad has to be faced. Farming, in 

 fact, is not a commercial speculation at all. 

 If it relied upon its commercial success, it 

 would die out almost completely. But the 

 old landholders love their estates ; the 

 newly rich, if they are of English spirit, 

 aspire to become landholders. Both are 

 usually content if from their agricultural 

 estates they are able to make the products 

 meet bare working expenses. Agricultural 

 landholding is not an investment : it is a 

 hobby. Being a hobby, it may as well be 

 carried on under the old picturesque condi- 

 tions, because even with the most modern 

 methods the gap between profitableness 

 and a fair return would not be bridged. 



" Do you know that within, say, sixty 

 miles of London I could to-day buy a farm 

 at a cheaper price per acre than one of the 



